


create/detonate: sidestories

by pprfaith, reena_jenkins



Series: create / detonate [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arguments, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Dark, F/M, FULL BODY CUDDLES, Ficlets, Flashbacks, Gen, I don't know how to warn for this chapter, Implied Torture, Nightmares, Podfic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Tags to be added, Timestamp, and it won't make any sense without reading create/detonate first, collection, implied rape, it's dark, okay?, popculture, sort of, this is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-15 14:00:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4609389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith, https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in time during and after create/detonate. </p><p>Pairings, tags and chapters to be added willy nilly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodnight

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [create / detonate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4375343) by [pprfaith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins). 



> Not beta read, not filtered and absolutely not relevant for the progress of civilization as a whole.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Soldier can't sleep. Set during some nebulous inbetween time of create/detonate.

[ **Download the podfic of this chapter as an mp3 here (00:15:32 | 18.9mb)** ](http://reena.parakaproductions.com/podfics/create%20:%20detonate/create%20:%20detonate%20-%20side%20stories/Goodnight%20-%20create%20_%20detonate%20side%20stories.mp3)

+

Goodnight

+

Sleep is a complicated thing.

It comes and goes, runs circles around you, teases. Threatens. Mostly, it just doesn’t like Winter. Or maybe he doesn’t like it. After almost seven decades of nothing but horrible, cold sleep, after all the nightmares he’s woken from screaming, he just can’t figure out what other people mean when talk longingly about a good night’s sleep.

He doesn’t remember it, but Steve tells him he used to be the envy of the Howling Commandos, able to sleep anywhere and at any time, instantly.

He can’t now.

He stays awake a minimum of twenty hours, sometimes over thirty, until his body starts shutting down and there’s no way he can stay awake any longer without stimulants. Then he finds a safe, quiet place, one where no-one can hear him, and he sleeps. Sometimes he gets four hours. Lately. Sometimes he doesn't. He does better some of the time, now, after half a year as himself, but tonight it's as bad as it's ever been.

Tonight, he made a mistake. By hour twenty-seven he found a book to read about the Cold War and he forced himself to stay awake through it, reading right past the drop into his… fifth wind. Now he’s wired with sleep deprivation and the collection of black and white photographs of bombs and scientists, politicians and soldiers. He wonders how many of these people he murdered. He wonders if those bombs were aware, the way Tasha’s machines all are. If they knew their purpose and loathed it. If they were capable of loathing.

He knows it’s not an entirely sane or logical train of thought, but madness chews at his heels and he’s been walking the perimeter since hour thirty-five. He also has some long-forgotten impulse to chew on his thumbnail, which is an interesting revelation, but also too much right now.

Natalia isn’t here, off to do some scouting, or whatever else she does when she disappears for a week and comes back with information.

Steve is asleep.

“ _Miss Stark is in her bedroom. Would you like me to ask her if she would join you?_ ”

And keep her awake, too? “No, thank you, voice. I’m fine.”

The voice – JARVIS, he should call him by name, has been doing it for months, now – manages judgmental silence surprisingly well. “Okay, I’m not okay. But it’s nothing Tasha can fix. I’ll be alright. JARVIS.”

He tags the last on as an attempt at manipulating the intelligent machine. It works. JARVIS sounds a bit mollified. “ _Acceptable. For now. But do try to get some sleep, Mr. Winter._ ”

He nods, keeps walking, walking, walking.

“You know, if you actually manage to wear grooves into my Italian marble floors, I’ll be pissed.” Tasha doesn’t really surprise him, because he doesn’t get surprised, but his muscles tense, ready for attack, all the same.

Ready to defend himself from Tasha. He checks his watch, realizes it’s been an hour since he talked to JARVIS. _For now_ has apparently run out.

“What’s up, babe?”

He shrugs, keeps going. Maybe she’ll let him walk away. Maybe she’ll be kind.

But Tasha Stark is many things. Kind is only rarely one of them. “Stop,” she orders, shoves herself into his path, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt that might be his, might be Steve’s. It slips down one shoulder. The arc reactor glows beneath, reassuring him she is alive, alive, alive.

Unlike the people he murdered. For HYDRA.

Hail HYDRA.

He stops dead.

“Come to bed. It’s three am and you look like death warmed over twice. Come to bed.” She doesn’t phrase it like a request and when he dithers, she reaches up and around, presses a hand to the nape of his neck. Pushes down, just a little.

Something uncurls in him.

Tasha Stark is rarely kind, but sometimes, sometimes she is. Sometimes she looks at him and sees and doesn’t comment. She just helps. Helps a man who hasn’t made a decision outside of immediate combat since before she was born, who has been indoctrinated again and again, to wait for orders, to obey. He gets tangled up in himself, sometimes, in all his options.

Freedom is complicated.

And Tasha _knows_. They’ve never spoken about it and she has never joked about it, but she knows. And sometimes, when she’s being obvious about it and Little Sister looks to horribly raw, when Steve looks so angry and judgmental, she just glares right back and keeps on doing what she’s doing. Because when he gets lost, Tasha finds him.

Even before she knew who he was, she found him.

“Bed,” she orders, crisp and suddenly wide awake. “Now.”

He lets himself be marched into the bedroom, where she lets go of him with one last squeeze. “Strip.”

He strips until he’s bare except for his boxer briefs. She nods, satisfied, presses an open palm against the webbing of scars on his chest briefly. Her hand feels impossibly warm.

“On the bed.”

He climbs onto the huge bed, meant to hold at least three more people than are currently present, lies on his back. He hates being on his back in his sleep, or awake. It leaves his soft belly bare, leaves him defenseless and open and weak. When he’s alone, or even with Steve and Natalia, he sleeps on his belly, or curled onto his side. Protecting his weak spots.

It’s only with Tasha that he lies on his back, all his squishy bits exposed to her.

She dims the lights manually, leaving them bathed in moonlight. Then she climbs on top of him. She doesn’t lay half on his chest, doesn’t entangle their legs. She simply climbs up to sit on his hips and then stretches out. Her weight presses him into the mattress. The edges of her reactor dig into his chest painfully, scraping against raised scar tissue. Her legs pin his, her hipbones bite into his own. She curls one hand around his metal arm, holding it. Leaving him completely immobile, held down.

Chained down. She doesn’t need leather straps and a bit to make him still.

Winter exhales and she smiles at him in the dark, nestles her face into the curve of his neck. Shifts a bit to get comfortable. He bites his lip, holds back a groan at his reaction. She presses a thigh to it, just for a moment, sending something white hot down his spine. Then she moves her leg away.

He wants to chase it. Doesn’t.

“Good boy,” she breathes into his skin, kisses right behind his ear. His mind stills.

She’s pleased. He’s been good. His muscles uncoil.

“Want to talk about it?” If her mouth weren’t right by his ear, he wouldn’t hear her.

“I read a book about the Cold War. There were pictures.” And one of the faces turned Technicolor right before his eyes. Dark hair turning brown, grey eyes green. The man’s voice was deep, comforting.

“Bad ones?” Her free hand finds its way to his nape, tangles in the hair there. Holds on. Holds him down.

“I think I killed one of the scientists.” There’s no point in not being candid about it. Tasha appreciates brutal honesty more than any dance and he needs, so badly, to have her pleased with him tonight. To be _good_.

“Not your choice, not your fault.” Her words are instant, easy. She knows he doesn’t believe them, can’t. She keeps saying them anyway, hoping that one day they’ll stick. He hopes so, too.

“He…,” she cuts him off ruthlessly, “No. That may have been your hands, but it wasn’t your mind so it doesn’t count. Shut up.”

His mouth clicks shut.

Another kiss. “Good.”

He raises one hand, lets it hover over her waist until she nods permission, then settles it there. Feels her, warm and alive and heavy, pressing on his lungs, metal parts digging into his skin. She keeps his legs tangled and his hair in her grip, leaving him defenseless and open and _down_.

It’s better than sleeping in his chamber ever was because he knows, if he says please, Tasha will let him go. If he wants up, she’ll let him up.

It’s just that he doesn’t want to.

“Sleep,” she mutters after a while, when his heartbeat has calmed under her ear and his legs have stopped their restless twitching, wanting to flee. He gets used to her weight, breathes shallowly to compensate.

He sleeps.

+


	2. Culture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tasha and Steve fight. Pop-culturally. Or something. Set shortly after create/detonate.

 

[ **Download the podfic of this chapter as an mp3 here (00:09:26 | 12mb)** ](http://reena.parakaproductions.com/podfics/create%20:%20detonate/create%20:%20detonate%20-%20side%20stories/Culture%20-%20create%20_%20detonate%20side%20stories.mp3)

+

Culture

+

Tasha lives, eats and breathes pop-culture.

It takes James about a month to figure out that’s what her weird references are, but once he does, they are _everywhere_. She has material for anything from burnt breakfast to the apocalypse and she doesn’t even think about these things, just mumbles them without paying attention and he understands how that might drive people mad.

The disregard of it, the levity that is sometimes so out of place is hurts.

But James has spent the better part of a century in a place where the only laughter was cruel and any sort of humor was _ripped out of them_. Tasha turning social situations into awkward clusterfucks because her mouth runs off with her is perfectly alright with him. He likes it.

Like right now. Tasha is standing on one end of the kitchen island, Steve on the other. Both of them are frowning at each other because they get on like cats and dogs most days and James hates it a little, but the entertainment value, once Little Sister pointed it out, is pretty good, so he lets them have at it until someone threatens bodily harm.

Usually Tasha. Steve is too Forties for that kind of thing. They’re trying to break him of it, but so far, he’s the same stubborn cuss he’s always been.

\- He can say things like that now, things like _the way he’s always been_ , and trust that they’re actually true. Memory. His memory.

“I just wish you’d –"

“Ah-ah,” Tasha cuts Steve off, obnoxiously, “we don’t use the w-word in this house!”

Well. It’s one step up from telling Steve to ‘shove his antiquated fucking world view up his perfectly shaped bubble butt before she does it for him’. But only one step.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean that your mouth is open and sound is coming from it and I have just about had it, okay? Spank your inner moppet, cry into your damn pillow, I don’t care, but get over yourself. Stop fixating on the fact that I’m the one talking and start listening to what I’m saying, damn it! This was working long before we dragged your ass out of HYDRA central. We do not need you!”

“I was trying to offer constructive criticism! It’s not my fault you’re unwilling to listen. Howard would have – “

Aaaand there he goes.

Tasha makes an inarticulate noise of rage and James is tempted to let her call her suit and whale on Stevie for a while because he knows, _knows_ that Howard is one button you _do not push_.

But the mad genius catches herself before she flies off the handle completely, switches to the bright, fake smile she wears for the press and proceeds to completely ignore Captain America in the middle of the kitchen.

Instead she flounces up to James, presses a peck to his cheek and offers, “I’m off to blow shit up. If the apocalypse comes, beep me.”

And then she’s gone to, undoubtedly, blast music at ear-splitting decibels until she can stand to look Steve in the eye again.

James, left with a confused best friend and no real energy to play middle man _again_ , sighs.

Beside him, perched on the counter, Natalia idly bites into a potato chip and asks, “How many Buffy references was that? Five?”

James knows why he recognized Tasha’s weapons of choice for today. The woman in question made him marathon all seven seasons with her. He doesn’t know why Natalia does, though.

When he asks, all she does is beam and offer, “I’m secret identity girl. Telling you would be boring.”

Then she jumps off the counter, grabs a last handful of chips and saunters out, calling, “Have fun peacemaking,” as she goes.

And James… James is left with an irate best friend, an angry girlfriend in the basement and HYDRA looming over all of them and he is so, so tired of the two of them fighting every step of the way because it makes things a thousand times harder than they have to be. Especially because from where he’s standing it’s glaringly obvious that, half the time, their issues stem from them simply having completely different ways of communicating.

Steve can be a dry-witted son of a bitch when he wants to be, but when it counts, he picks his words carefully and for maximum impact, because once upon a time, they were there only defense he had, whereas Tasha quotes, jokes and circumnavigates any issue until everyone’s blue in the fact rather than just getting to the point because to her, words are cheap. She talks the way she thinks, in three languages and seven directions at once, and it seems dismissive, like she isn’t paying attention, but James has had her quote back entire conversations at him, verbatim, when it seemed like she wasn’t paying a lick of attention to him. And even if she couldn’t do that, JARVIS is recording everything.

James has no patience for the song and dance today.

So, in a fit of either genius inspiration of complete insanity, he grabs his best friend by the shoulder and starts steering him toward the living room.

“JARVIS,” he asks, before Steve can start demanding things, “can you cue up Buffy, please? Start with episode one.”

It’s probably not going to change much of anything between Steve and Tasha, but at least Steve can stop looking confused whenever Tasha gets quoting.

Star Wars after that, he thinks. Maybe Star Trek.

+


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Common ground, or something like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has come to my attention that I have not posted this half a year ago, like I thought. Sorry. For the super cheesy ending as well.

[ **Download the podfic of this chapter as an mp3 here (00:17:47 | 22mb)** ](http://reena.parakaproductions.com/podfics/create%20:%20detonate/create%20:%20detonate%20-%20side%20stories/Scream%20-%20create%20_%20detonate%20side%20stories.mp3)

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Scream

+

Steve has always found the word ‘scream’ misleading. Or… maybe not misleading. Simply too broad. A child calling for its mother is screaming. An angry person shouting is screaming. Someone yelling for a fresh roll of toilet paper is screaming.

Technically, the noise that wakes him is screaming, too, but it sounds… he’s heard screams like that before. In the HYDRA labs, during the war, noises that were only sound, no traces of coherence, of words or grammar left. Noises full of raw human emotion, of pain, of hate, of rage. Something primal and shrill and _awful_.

He’s on his feet and halfway down the hallway before he even fully registers where he is. Stark Manor, New York. Twenty-first century. The war’s been over for a long time.

But still there is that screaming.

He reaches Stark’s and Bucky’s bedroom a moment later, flings open the door and finds –

He doesn’t know what he expected. An attack. A tickle fight. Intruders. Something.

Not for the room to be perfectly ordered, as always, except for the woman cowering in the corner.

And that is what Tasha is doing.

She’s somehow flung herself off the bed and into the farthest corner of the room, legs drawn to her chest, one arm wrapped around them, the other shielding her chest, nails digging in hard enough to leave bloody gouges in their wake. Her eyes are open, but unseeing and as Steve watches, horrified, her inarticulate shrieks dissolve into begging sobs.

“No, please, no, no, don’t, please, no – “

She twists her head sideways as if trying to escape something – someone – and Steve finally, belatedly, understands that this isn’t just a nightmare caused by their earlier mission, by the people they saved from one of HYDRA’s labs less than twelve hours ago. Tasha twists and whimpers and begs and Steve realizes that what he’s seeing is a flashback.

It’s a memory.

On the heels of that realization, Bucky slams into him. Literally. He elbows Steve out of the doorway with enough strength behind it to send the super soldier slamming into the doorjamb shoulder first, a lance of pain shooting up his neck.

By the time Steve regains his footing – physically as well as mentally – his best friend is crouched a good few feet out of Stark’s reach, quietly speaking to her, for once, entirely in English.

“- okay, you’re at home, it’s okay, they’re dead, they’re all dead, it’s just me, just Jamie, you’re okay, it’s only a nightmare. You’re in your bedroom, JARVIS is keeping watch, you’re fine, you’re okay, they’re all dead. You killed them all, Tasha, all of them. You killed them and they can’t hurt you anymore, it’s just a nightmare, your reactor is okay, you’re okay, come on, come on, breathe –“

“Jamie?”

Steve expects Bucky to move now, to hug Tasha, but he stays right where he is. “Yeah. You with me?”

“I… did I?”

“Da.”

“Knew I shouldn’t have slept after that shit today.” She shakes her head, takes a few deep breaths and then, visibly steeling herself, rolls onto her knees. One arm stays crossed over her chest, covering her reactor as she knee-walks forward just far enough to collapse into Bucky’s arms.

He’s been expecting it, catches her effortlessly and maneuvers them both into a comfortable position with her sitting on top of him, her face buried in his neck. He keeps stroking her hair and Steve – Steve finally finds the decency to leave the room and close the door behind himself.

Natasha – Natalia – is leaning next to the door, giving him an even look. She’s wearing workout clothes, the same as Bucky. So that’s where they were. Usually, much to his chagrin, Tasha and Bucky are pretty much joined at the hip.

Now… now Steve thinks he might know why.

“I…,” he struggles for words. How? When? Why? But he knows the answer. Afghanistan. He knew, after reading the reports SHIELD provided, that something in the Stark heir must have broken then. He didn’t… he never considered the details. He never wondered _how_ Tasha broke, even after accepting she had. He never cared enough.

But what he just saw, the woman he just witnessed in the throes of a flashback strong enough to make her _beg_ , that wasn’t the sassy, arrogant, flashy genius he’s come to know and, to be perfectly honest, barely tolerate on good days.

Oh, he knew that there had to be more to her, for Bucky to care so deeply, for Natalia to like her, to side with her. He’s caught glimpses, sometimes, during missions like the one today, where she’d been painfully gentle with the survivors they had found. When she looks at Bucky, or lets Natalia play with her hair.

He knew that, if she wanted to, she could be a perfectly nice person. He also knew that, for him, she never wanted to.

“What happened to her?” he asks, voice pitched low despite the closed door.

The younger woman just shrugs, a fluid movement, full of a dancer’s grace. “Does it matter?”

He wants to know. Wants to understand her, the world she comes from, the world he lives in. He still feels lost. He knows the words, the facts, yes, knows that Natasha Stark spent three months in the hands of terrorists in Afghanistan, but he doesn’t know what that _means_. Terrorism is a word everyone uses these days, but he has no reference, no comparison. Are they like HYDRA? Are they like Nazis? Do they treat their prisoners according to international agreements? Do they torture? Do they – do they rape? He doesn’t know those things and the lack of understanding makes him feel afloat, adrift and lost and he hates that feeling. It makes him angry. And no-one causes that feeling in him more often than Tasha, so far ahead of her time even the present must seem like ancient history to her.

So, yes, he wants to know. To understand. Her past, her present, and maybe, if he’s lucky, her.

But does it really matter? Does he _need_ to know the gruesome details? Grudgingly, he shakes his head. A small, crooked smile flashes across Natalia’s face in what Steve thinks is approval.

“Come on,” she prompts, pushing away from the wall and wandering off in the direction of the kitchen. He follows her, sits at the island as he watches her pull down mugs and boil milk on the stove, grate the dark chocolate he was told not to touch on pain of death. She adds sugar, some kind of dark liquor, stirs until the chocolate is completely dissolved, then pours it into four mugs, preheated in the microwave. She gets the coffee machine to just foam milk without making coffee and adds that to the full mugs, topping everything off with mini marshmallows. She puts her concoctions on a tray and carries them into the living room, where she sits down comfortably, grabbing an afghan lying around and draping it over her legs.

“Pass me one of those?” she asks, breaking the silence abruptly.

Steve, still standing around like an idiot, passes her a mug, almost burning his fingers as he does. Natalia accept the offering with her hands draped under the blanket, protecting her palms from the heat. Then, without another word, she settles in.

For want of anything better to do, Steve joins her a minute later, sitting on her left, a foot of space between them. Leaving the other half of the sofa for the people the other two mugs are for. And also abusing the woman next to him as a buffer.

They come ten minutes later, Tasha still damp from a shower, dressed in fresh clothes – a sweater that cannot possibly belong to her, bulky enough to hide her torso completely, and Bucky hovers behind her. Except – not behind her. Not really. In fact, he makes a point of never being out of her peripheral vision, keeping himself visible to her at all times. To reassure her of his presence perhaps. Or, Steve thinks darkly, to let her keep an eye on all potential threats. His mind follows that train of thought, wondering why she would possibly need to keep all males within view, and then stopping, stopping fast.

Bucky was a bit like that, after Steve freed him from HYDRA during the war. Jumpy. Paranoid. Not always recognizing friend from foe. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t begrudge his dame the way she can’t look at him straight on right now. He just follows her, careful not to touch, waits for her cues.

She sits next to Natalia, grabs one of the mugs without so much as twitching at the heat, and inhales the aroma of the hot chocolate, darkly sweet with the tang of alcohol just noticeable. It’s delicious. She burrows into the other woman’s side, seeking out comfort and Bucky follows the moment she smiles at him, reaching out one hand. He plasters himself along her other side, covering her with his body like he’s expecting heavy fire any second. He finds them another blanket – there always seem to be a dozen of them lying around this room, and drapes it over them both. Natalia shares a corner of her own with Tasha and they settle in to stay just as the TV turns itself on. Cartoons. Mindless entertainment.

Briefly, over the heads of the ladies, Bucky’s eyes meet Steve’s and somehow, Steve manages a little smile, something like defeat in his expression.

No-one speaks, except to praise the hot chocolate and for the next hour, they all fall into a trance like state, more asleep than awake. Natalia give in, her head on Tasha’s shoulder, Bucky follows, using Tasha’s lap as a pillow. They must have worked out like all hell to succumb like this.

Tasha herself is obviously equally exhausted, but she jerks herself back to wakefulness every time she gets close to drifting off, yanking herself back into the present, where a sentient sponge is having a nonsensical conversation with a starfish. Steve thinks there might be a deep sea diving squirrel, but he’s a little terrified that paying actual attention might make his brain drip from his ears, so he watches Howard’s daughter instead as she hurts herself time and again, battling the inevitable. He sees her looking at the other two, something like desperation flitting across her features and he thinks – he thinks –

“I’ll keep watch,” he says, carefully not whispering. Whispering sounds like secrets, sounds like danger, and is a surefire way to wake everyone up again.

Tasha’s head shoots up painfully, wide eyes fixed on him like she forgot he was there. He doesn’t believe it for a second. “Sleep,” he tells her, “I’m not tired. I’ll keep watch.”

It helped Bucky, sometimes, to know someone was watching out for him. That someone would wake him when his monsters came haunting.

He doesn’t really expect Tasha to take him up on the offer, doesn’t think she trusts him enough for this, but she just sighs and sinks back into the couch, her head on Natalia’s, their hair mixing and mingling. Her fingers bury themselves in Bucky’s messy bun, massaging lightly. Within moments, she’s gone, sandwiched between her two friends.

They are all going to hurt so badly tomorrow morning. But since sunup is only a few hours away, Steve doesn’t think there’s much point in trying to transfer them into bed.

Instead he sits, watches the sponge and the starfish and the squirrel - and is that a cantankerous squid – and tries not to think too much about Natasha Stark and all the contradictions that make her so confusing.

He keeps watch until dawn.

+


End file.
